There is one small sign outside his campaign headquarters, which happens to be his house on sleepy Lancaster Avenue in Kentfield. By the front door are a stroller and a pumpkin. Behind the house sit a lawnmower, a rake and other items that were pushed into the yard to make room in the one-car garage (among the Costco packages of toilet paper and diapers) for lawn signs, wooden stakes and boxes of campaign brochures. "I'm praying there's no rain until November, " Felder jokes over lunch.

Such is the plight of a Republican in District 3, the San Francisco-Marin- Sonoma swath of real estate that is home to more "Kerry for President" and "Defoliate Bush" bumper stickers than anywhere but perhaps the UC Berkeley campus.

He is wearing khaki pants and a button-down shirt with a ballpoint pen in the front pocket, looking like the mergers and acquisitions consultant he is. He grew up in New York's Westchester County in a Democratic household.

"My parents are still wondering what happened," he says.

Felder knows he has no chance of beating Migden, who will replace longtime liberal senator John Burton. She didn't answer the League of Women Voters' online questions during the primary. She is spending much of her war chest not on campaign literature or ads -- who needs 'em? -- but on other Democratic candidates.

Migden has raised about $1.7 million so far. Felder has raised $22,000. His campaign staff is four friends helping out in their spare time. If you call the phone number listed on his Web site (which he put together himself), you get his home answering machine.

So why is he out every weekend at the San Anselmo street fair, the Mill Valley Soccer Fest, the Drakes Beach sand sculpture contest, fighting a battle that cannot be won?

"I want people to start thinking beyond the reflex of, 'I've always voted Democrat, so I'll do it again,' " he says, describing himself as a social progressive and fiscal moderate out of the Arnold Schwarzenegger mold. "I want to suggest that people stop, look and listen, and then challenge their own stereotypes of what a Republican is."

It is not easy work. Last weekend at a wine festival in Larkspur, one woman told him she would rather die than vote for a Republican. He told her it probably was not a wise choice. Another woman suddenly stopped in her tracks, presumably having caught the word "Republican" on the brochure Felder had just handed her. She turned and threw the brochure at Felder, then grabbed the brochure out of her friend's hand and threw that at him, too.

"I made a note to myself to get brochures with rounded edges," he says.

Felder chuckles when telling the stories, which he says are not typical. Most people have been civil. But he says few are willing to listen long enough to consider that he might have something more to offer -- especially to fellow residents of Marin -- than the parade of San Francisco politicians that ostensibly have been representing their interests in Sacramento.

"Marin and Sonoma are basically disenfranchised," he says. "The district has been gerrymandered so that (someone from) San Francisco always wins. Basically San Francisco gets two (state) senators and Marin gets none."

San Francisco is split into two districts -- Districts 3 and 8 -- so it has, at present, both Burton and Jackie Speier working on its behalf. This week, the Marin Independent-Journal endorsed Felder after an editorial board meeting in which he and Migden sharply sparred.

Later, as the two candidates arrived on stage for a debate sponsored by the Marin Chamber of Commerce, Migden refused to shake her opponent's hand. The chamber endorsed Felder.

"To me, those are wins right there," Felder says of the endorsements.

He is finishing his club sandwich at Half Day Cafe across from College of Marin. He says he doesn't feel he is wasting his time in this futile campaign. It could pay off down the road. He says it will take patience, but he envisions a day when District 3 elects a Republican to the state Senate.

"It's not preordained by God that Marin has to vote Democratic," he says.

And if he was declared the winner on Nov. 2?

Felder laughs.

"I'd demand a recount."

This story has been corrected since it appeared in print editions. Carole Migden's Web site is www.migden2004.com. (